Eur, El 1031

Greek Learning Greek
1

1030ἐπὶ τοῖσδε τοίνυν καίπερ ἠδικημένη
οὐκ ἠγριώμην οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἔκτανον πόσιν:
Is it possible for this an to refer to both the verbs? or just to the last one?
Hence, two translations:

  1. Well, although I was wronged, I would not have been angry at this, nor would I have killed my husband. (Coleridge, 1938)
    2)although I had been wronged, I was not spiteful, nor would I have killed my husband. CGCG In the last translation the use of ‘nor’ is probably not altogether correct since it does not connect components of the same quality. Generally speaking, CGCG’s many translations have a foreign accent, and some are so bad that I could not understand them until I peeped into the Greek original.
2

ἂν doesn’t apply to ἠγριώμην, only to ἔκτανον. She hadn’t gone wild, and she wouldn’t have killed him at all if he hadn’t deserved it. If you read the rest of her speech you’ll see how she justifies her action. What self-respecting wife would have done otherwise? A good number of Euripides’ women are presented as feminists avant la lettre.

Your objection to “nor” is misplaced.
(And CGCG’s translations are good. I speak as a native English-speaker whose command of both Greek and English is I think not inferior to yours.)

3

Quirk-Greenbaum, 13. 40: grammatical tradition also holds that correlative coordinators should introduce constituents of equivalent function and status. This reflects a general constraint that the conjoins of a coordinate construction must be equivalent. Here, "was not spiteful’ is not of the same status as ‘would I have killed my husband’ because one is factual and the other counterfactual.

4

If ἂν applied to both limbs, it would be placed either in the first limb or in both.

Now you’re citing an English grammar against native speakers of English. That’s just plain ludicrous.

I have no idea what Quirk-Greenbaum meant – assuming your citation is accurate – but they can’t possibly mean what you think. The CGCG translation is perfectly good English and represents the Greek text well.

5

Unlike the rules of mathematics, the “rules” of grammar are descriptive. They describe the speech and writing of competent native speakers at a particular place and time. Native speakers are slowly but constantly evolving the language. Furthermore they sometimes stretch or break “rules” in order to achieve an effect. Sometimes they shorten a grammatically “correct” sentence with an abbreviated form that would be perfectly comprehensible to the hearer.

You say “CGCG’s many translations have a foreign accent, and some are so bad that I could not understand them until I peeped into the Greek original.” Since English is the native language of the people of England, and Cambridge is a premier university in England, they ought to be authoritative on the Queen’s English.

To the degree to which the usage of Greek authors seems to conflict with the “rules” of any grammar we must assume that the grammarian has chosen to ignore “exceptions” to the “rules” in order to reduce the bulk of the grammar.

6

Isn’t “οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἔκτανον πόσιν” logically predicated on the preceding “οὐκ ἠγριώμην”? I would have thought it meant “I was not made savage, and would not have killed my husband.” The connection being, as she was not made savage, she wouldn’t have killed him (for that). The “nor” makes them look like a separated list of denials and obscures the connection.

7

Joel, I’m not sure I follow your point.

This is the full passage:

ἢ δῶμ᾽ ὀνήσων τἄλλα τ᾽ ἐκσῴζων τέκνα,
ἔκτεινε πολλῶν μίαν ὕπερ, συγγνώστ᾽ ἂν ἦν:
νῦν δ᾽ οὕνεχ᾽ Ἑλένη μάργος ἦν ὅ τ᾽ αὖ λαβὼν
ἄλοχον κολάζειν προδότιν οὐκ ἠπίστατο,
τούτων ἕκατι παῖδ᾽ ἐμὴν διώλεσεν.
ἐπὶ τοῖσδε τοίνυν καίπερ ἠδικημένη
οὐκ ἠγριώμην οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἔκτανον πόσιν:
ἀλλ᾽ ἦλθ᾽ ἔχων μοι μαινάδ᾽ ἔνθεον κόρην
λέκτροις τ᾽ ἐπεισέφρηκε, καὶ νύμφα δύο
ἐν τοῖσιν αὐτοῖς δώμασιν κατείχομεν.

The emphatic fronting of ἐπὶ τοῖσδε, in my view, is the key here, and it applies to both οὐκ ἠγριώμην and οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἔκτανον πόσιν. To paraphrase: Even though I was wronged, mark you [τοίνυν], this [i.e., the killing of Iphigenia] wasn’t why I was angry, and for this I wouldn’t have killed my husband. Rather [ἀλλ᾽], [it was because] he brought a concubine into the house.

CGCG (p. 684): “As it was, because Helen was lewd, for that reason he killed my child. Now, in response to this, although I had been wronged, I was not spiteful, nor would I have killed my husband.”

I’m not sure that the CGCG translation, which is focused on the use of τοίνυν, captures the emphatic force of ἐπὶ τοῖσδε here. In my reading, Klytaimestra is not saying she wasn’t angry – she’s saying that the killing of Iphigenia wasn’t the reason for her anger.

ἠγριώμην – pluperfect mediopassive. This is Nauck’s conjecture (1854); the ms. has ἠγριούμην, imperfect mediopassive.

8

Oh, I see, this is Clytemnestra? The context does help. I can see how understanding it as “οὐκ ἐπὶ τοῖσδε ἠγριώμην” (as your paraphrase seems to bring out) would make sense for the first phrase. But still, this would seem impossible: οὐκ ἐπὶ τοῖσδε ἠγριώμην οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἔκτανον πόσιν.

I think that I’m still stuck reading it like Michael seems to imply in his first post: a flat denial that she had gone wild at all. Despite the axe-murdering, I guess.

9

a flat denial that she had gone wild at all. Despite the axe-murdering, I guess.

In the teeth of the facts, hard to deny that she didn’t go wild. That’s my point.

10

οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἔκτανον πόσιν doesn’t quite make sense here without construing ἐπὶ τοῖσδε with it. So ἐπὶ τοῖσδε must mean something like “for this reason”, “because of this”. But it doesn’t make sense to emphasize ἐπὶ τοῖσδε, “for this reason” in denying that she went wild – how can she possibly deny it after killing her husband? She’s denying the assertion that she went wild because of the killing of Iphigenia. She continues the argument with ἀλλ᾽, explaining the reason why she went wild and killed her husband.

11

It’s by the by really, but I don’t think any of the authors is a native English speaker and none of them holds a post at Cambridge.

I’m sure mwh will be right about the quality of the translations (I don’t have a copy), but from what I have seen flicking through there are at least some issues in the pronunciation section - equating the o in go and notorious (a schwa for British people, the Queen excepted) and giving both as the equivalent of omicron, or making a distinction between made and eight, among other indelicacies.

12

As I think I’ve remarked before, CGCG is a very Dutch grammar (just as Simon Slings was a very Dutch scholar). That’s not meant as a putdown.

But on the Electra discussion above, esp. Hylander:
The way I read it, she is denying she’d gone wild. She killed him in cold blood, or at least with a cool head. not altogether dispassionately perhaps, but as a matter of simple justice. If he’d killed her daughter in a good cause (πολλῶν μίαν ὕπερ), that could have been forgiven, but he hadn’t. And (moving on in time) if her husband hadn’t brought the madwoman home with him, to his(/her) bed, she wouldn’t have killed him (note the blunt reciprocal ἔκτεινε … ἔκτανον), but as it is, …. She’s a Euripidean woman who doesn’t hold with double standards, and what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

She doesn’t deny killing him, but she justifies it and does deny she’d been “wild” in doing so. She’s applying the regular dichotomy between wild and civilized. She has a keen sense of justice—not an attribute of wildness. And as I read it, the thrust of the ἀλλα is “But instead (of these mitigating circumstances applying), (the brazen affront to my domestic rights was the straw that broke the camel’s back.)”

There are more points that could be addressed, but I think this is the essence.